kale

All posts tagged kale

WOO! I had derby practice last night, and I got to do my 1st contact work! We were practicing pack work like pushing each other to block a jammer coming up on the outside edge of the track, as well as steering them off the track with leverage. (Sorry, I’m still not sure of the actual names of these maneuvers!) SO MUCH FUN! And I’m so glad too, because I’ll be expected to participate in the next scrimmage on November 3rd, and I need some skills! I had to sit out the one this month, even though I had just joined the team, because I had only attended two practices: one was a fit skate, and one was on jam skating (basically dance skating), but they’re considered mandatory unless you’re sick, injured or out of town. Hope we get a lot more of these type of practices in the next two weeks!

Thomas rode his bike up to the Rat’s Nest (where we practice) after work and met me, so we were both pretty hungry and decided to hit Wayward Vegan Cafe on the way home. He got his usual, the Wizard, and I got a nice healthy Bikini Bowl, which I’d had once before and was totally craving. It’s on their gluten-free menu and is comprised of quinoa, steamed kale, mandarin oranges, diced tomatoes, citrus marinated grilled tempeh, and served with a side of chipotle tahini. So good. Totally hit the spot. I’m trying to do clean, protein packed meals after workouts lately so I can reap the benefits of all this exercise more fully. A little more challenging since I have less time to cook with all the skating, but I thought this was an excellent restaurant meal. Hopefully once we’re settled into the new apartment, I can start doing some smarter meal planning to compensate.

Speaking of the new apartment… we’re officially moving Tuesday. So if I’m a little quiet for the next few days, that’s why. We haven’t packed a thing, but since we have 2 weeks to move, our attitude may be a little too casual. Tuesday we’re taking the big stuff over with a moving truck. Hopefully this weekend we can get most of the kitchen/bathroom/etc. stuff over there in little trips without having to make too big a deal about it. I hate moving. Not that you would know by how much I do it, but I’m hoping that we’ll be able to stay in the new place for a couple years or so, until we can get into a house.

Like this:

Baby’s on a budget! Between all the moving around I’ve done in the last few years, my recent uninsured arm fracture (I am now insured though – as of Saturday, woo!), and the loss of my old station wagon/attainment of a shiny new, gas friendly hatchback, my debts have piled sky high. So I sat down today and used two phone apps to get myself on a budget.

My thoughts immediately turned to food. In the last year I’ve become very reliant on going out and ordering in, instead of cooking. It started when we moved to Fort Lauderdale, with the major kitchen downsize, and had just continued since with all the changes this past year, but it ends now! My new goal is $50 week for groceries. Today we did $58, including beer & cider, at Trader Joe’s. I thought that was a pretty good first effort.

So in order to make this work, I decided to go back to my roots. Being Cuban/Honduran I grew up with lots of legumes and rice for weeknight meals. Trader Joe’s didn’t have dry beans, which I’m determined to start using for the most economical bang for my buck, but they did have plenty of well priced canned beans and other things. Next week we’re going to check out the local co-op to see what they have.

This was just something I whipped up based on a more traditional recipe. I served it over some kale and brown rice (a mix of short grain & basmati) for a hearty grain bowl. We sprinkled nutritional yeast on top, and the kale wilted and cooked perfectly under the hot broth.

For some reason, I have been back in the kitchen with a vengeance, despite the broken extremity. Maybe I just needed a challenge? Maybe it’s that none of my coats fit over my splinted arm, and we just had a cold snap? Regardless, this is an updated, no knifework, no fuss version of my Tofu Scramble. Enjoy!

It’s hard to believe I hadn’t written a review of this salad yet! Months ago I saw Dawn over at Vegan Moxie post a picture of this salad and knew I must try it right away. I bought a kindle copy of Blissful Bites before we moved, but hadn’t really gotten to explore it due to my extreme decrease in cooking at home since then.

This should really be called Pizza Kale salad b/c it’s much more reminiscent of that comfort food, over mac n cheese due to its sun dried tomatoes and nooch.

Ingredients aren’t too complicated, and the only mixing you do is in the bowl, with your hands. (Easy!) This was the 1st time I used an avocado that wasn’t way overripe, so I even retained some pieces of it this time after massaging everything together!

Sorry, it’s a little blurry! I was in a big hurry to eat my delicious salad!

I’ve made this a number of times now due to its addictive nature. Initially, I couldn’t find plain, dry sun dried tomatoes, so I used the ones in olive oil and omitted the extra oil. Now that I found some at Trader Joe’s (our WF doesn’t carry them), I use a tsp. of the leftover [now] tomato infused oil for the recipe. In fact, the last time I made it, I was out of the tomatoes and just used the infused oil, and it was still good. (So much so that I ate the whole giant bowl in one sitting!)

You can find out more about macrobiotic chef Christy Morgan, her book, and her recipes over at her website, TheBlissfulChef.com. I’ll be meeting her for the 1st time/karaokeing with/seeing her in a couple months in Portland for Vida Vegan Con! 🙂

Oh! And Spring has finally begun over here in Seattle! Here’s what greeted me when I left the parking garage on aptly named Cherry Street today!

Tomorrow’s going to be 68, and Thomas is actually OFF! I may get to stroll around town in a halter dress instead of a 3/4 length coat! 🙂

Here’s something that I threw together last night pretty quickly. Sometimes it’s more about getting something good together fast than making an elaborate meal, but this ended up tasting like it took much longer! I threw some kale in the mix for nutrients, color and texture.

I had been meaning to try out Blissful Bites‘ UnTuna Salad for quite some time now, and had bought the ingredients last week before I left for a friend’s wedding in Vegas. I chose this light, healthy dinner as the first one back purposefully, making it extra healthy by serving it over a bed of lightly dressed kale. The dressing is just a tahini based something I threw together in the small bowl of my food processor, but I’ll include the approximate recipe below.

For the Blissful Un-Tuna, I made a few adjustments. I went ahead and started by pulsing the chickpeas to a slight mash in the food processor, since it was being used regardless. I then used the fine grater for both the carrots (I used 2) and the celery (I used 1.5 stalks). I subbed dijon for yellow mustard, as I always do (I don’t really care about yellow). Surprisingly, I couldn’t find just plain kelp powder in the downtown Seattle Whole Foods, so I used Bragg’s Kelp seasoning. It came out really delicious! Even without having pure kelp powder it was plenty tuna-ish for me, and besides, we just adore chickpeas, so I knew this would be a win.

I’m writing this to you as I sit and eat out of the giant bowl pictured above. I had a tremendously large bunch of kale that I rinsed, cut up, and left to dry this morning. The challenge was finding a suitable dressing for it. Grocery trips were definitely off limits as tropical storm/hurricane Isaac has still been sending us squalls all day, and I’ve been catching up on laundry and watching the True Blood finale.

My first thought was doing something like this avocado miso dressing, but alas, neither of my avocados were ripe yet. So I threw one in a bag with my ripening bananas, and moved on. Then I found this recipe. If you read it through, you’ll see that it makes 3-5 times the amount called for, so I decided to scale it way down, change the proportions, ditch the tamari, sub seeds for tahini, and use the baby bowl of my food processor to get the job done. What you get is just enough dressing for a light coating. If you want this to be well dressed, you’ll probably want to use a heavier hand with everything depending on your amount of kale. While sometimes I DO use a tiny bit of leftover dressings, mostly they just end up sitting in the back of the fridge until I remember to throw them out weeks later. And who wants to waste good ingredients?

Toss everything in a very large bowl until well coated. Allow to sit and wilt, if desired or serve immediately.

Impression:

I decided to go the spicy route since *the sesame seeds I used were saved from the bottom of two bags of kale chips I had eaten this week. So they were already flavored with chile lime and barbeque, respectively. I debated about throwing in a clove of raw garlic or onion to give it a little bite, but ended up going the spice route and I think it was best. No lingering garlic breath! ; )

This was a bit of a departure for me as I usually combine sweet ingredients like raisins or apples into my salad, but this hearty, spicy salad made for a really delicious and filling main! Enjoy!

So this week we continued on our raw journey, though it wasn’t full raw; we added in some grains. Thomas had some grits for breakfast a few days this week, and we had that brown rice. We also ate a whole loaf of sprouted grain bread, most often toasted.

After I made the brown rice to go with the beet burgers on Monday, I ate the leftovers for lunch Tuesday with some sunflower seeds, nutritional yeast, and dijon mixed in. It was tasty and filling, but it felt heavy after all my raw food eating, and all I craved for the rest of the day was a kale salad, in the worst way! So for dinner I came home and made a BIG kale salad adapted from The 30 Minute Vegan‘s Rainbow Kale Salad, pg. 138 (amongst other things, I added a pear for some sweetness), and a whole lot of Thai Wraps adapted from RAW FOOD real world. This made so much that we were able to eat this yumminess for days (the latter is actually an appetizer recipe for 12), a major plus.

Directions: Combine salad ingredients in a very large bowl. Whisk dressing ingredients and massage dressing into salad with clean hands. Let it sit in the fridge or out for a little while to let the flavors absorb, and the kale soften slightly.

I made a lot of adjustments to the Spicy Thai Vegetable Wraps, RFRW pg. 143. I cut the oil in half for the chopped raw cashew mixture, which worked just fine. I used green instead of savoy cabbage, and for the almond butter sauce, I halved the recipe, and had more than enough sauce to coat it completely. I also used a combination of lemon and lime juice, and instead of a red chile, a little cayenne and red pepper flakes. My bean sprouts went bad, so sadly they were also left out. Also, I ran out of basil, so I just used a little more cilantro and mint. I didn’t bother at all with the tamarind dipping sauce, since they were plenty tasty on their own. So I ended up with…

1 bunch of collard greens, stems removed and cut down the middle into two halves
2 small carrrots, cut into matchsticks
1 ripe mango, cut into thin strips
large handful of cilantro, finely chopped
large handful of mint, finely chopped

I ended up with 10 beautiful wraps. 12 if you don't have any halves you don't like.

Results:

The leaves were really sturdy and thus, made these keep really well. So we were able to eat these delicious and fresh tasting wraps for days. The flavors complemented each other well, all the different textures were nice together, and provided a lot of crunch. Once they were all assembled, I thought they would’ve looked like pretty little Thai enchiladas if I had drizzled them with some tamarind dipping sauce, but I was already ready to be out of the kitchen and eating at that point, so I didn’t bother! ; )

I never make the same mashed potatoes twice, but here were the ingredients in them:

Many small russet potatoes, like 7 or 8? scrubbed, but skins on
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced and a few thin slices of red onion in thin half moons sautéed in some olive oil
about 1/4 c. of earth balance, vegan butter
unsweetened almond milk
at least 1/2 c. of nutritional yeast, this really added the perfect flavor!
freshly ground sea salt & pepper
a little bit of Daiya cheddar
a tiny bit of Bacos! yah, they’re vegan!

As far as the kale goes, I sautéed about 5 cloves of thinly sliced garlic in some olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, added wet kale and tossed until it turned vibrant green. Then I added more splashes of water and covered it a few minutes to let it steam until was wilted and the bitterness subsided.